Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Arrogant SOBs

For obvious reasons, I haven't written about Occupy Wall Street though I've been following since the first day. But by now you know the protests have expanded across the country and even overseas. A lot has been said about the amorphous nature of the protests but the one unifying slogan that has clearly emerged is "We are the 99%."

Yes, they are the 1%, the producers of economic mayhem, who stuffed their pockets with taxpayer bailout bucks and built it into new fortunes for themselves even as they continued to screw over the 99% with their fancy algorithums and other underhanded trading tricks.

This
companion piece happened about a week ago when Occupy Wall Street was still just a relative handful of hippies being ignored by the legacy media.

How entitled the wealth holders feel, lolling on their balconies, secure above the crowds, not unlike upper class Romans sneering down with amusement at the gladiators in the arena and feeling oh so superior to the hoi polloi in the stands. It was this arrogant class that brought down the Roman empire with their vainglorious excess. But as the 99% movement grows, we can perhaps hope history will not repeat itself.